Fermi paradox

This article is about the absence of clear evidence of extraterrestrial life. For a type of estimation problem, see Fermi problem.

The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence.

The paradox is named after physicist Enrico Fermi, who informally posed the question—remembered by Emil Konopinski as "But where is everybody?"—during a 1950 conversation at Los Alamos with colleagues Konopinski, Edward Teller, and Herbert York. The paradox first appeared in print in a 1963 paper by Carl Sagan and the paradox has since been fully characterized by scientists. Early formulations of the paradox have also been identified in writings by Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1686) and Jules Verne (1865), and by Soviet rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1933).

There have been many attempts to resolve the Fermi paradox, such as suggesting that intelligent extraterrestrial beings are extremely rare, that the lifetime of such civilizations is short, or that they exist but (for various reasons) humans see no evidence.

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